Brad and John Skype with Jake Solomon, Reddit AMA Tomorrow, Bitcoins!

E3’s over and we’re moving into our final full week before we close on the 27th. We’ve got a lot of exciting updates planned this week, so let’s get into it! :D

XCOM’s Jake Solomon on MASSIVE CHALICE

Recently Brad and John Skyped with Jake Solomon, lead designer of XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Jake spoke about some of the challenges he encountered during the development of XCOM and how the team at Firaxis overcame them. Along with lessons learned from making a modern turn-based strategy game, Jake gave his unique perspective on the early design direction of MASSIVE CHALICE. Check it out below or on Double Fine's YouTube channel!

To see veterans like Jake back the project is super exciting for us! If you’d like to discuss this chat then head over to the forums!

Bitcoin Support

You asked for it and we listened! Our tireless web team has added another method of backing MASSIVE CHALICE by supporting Bitcoin. Head on over to www.massivechalice.com/back and select either Bitcoin or PayPal to show your MASSIVE love for MASSIVE CHALICE!

Comments

Didn't get to finish the video, but another thing that could help boil down tactical choices is having a range of different abilities for each character, or very different strengths and weaknesses in the different classes. This will make placement important. If diffierent abilities function in very different ways, the choices on what abilities will be useful would also affect placement and things like that. Also, In Shogun: Total War, each type of unit had one or two types of enemy that it was effective against. This made the formation and movement of your army very important, because you had to try and find a way to attack the weak units while avoiding the strong ones, which meant predicting where your enemy would move their forces. In melee, facing could also be important. If an enemy is locked in battle with one of your units, then it could be possible to flank them for a damage bonus.

I liked the memorial in X-COM, but I wanted even more specific information out of it, like how the character died, and the ability to view their stats and equipment. In fact, when my best sniper was gunned down by a sectopod, I felt the need to write him an obituary.

@ Stephen Hammes
On "gaming" the death in battle idea. It strikes me that if Brad, John, and their team are designing the game the way that they say they are, this problem will kind of take care of itself. Depending on squad size, and it sounds like they're thinking about the six-person general range, losing one team member, even if they're old/less powerful, and even if it's going to buff one of your other team mates would still put you at a tactical disadvantage. After all, you did bring them to the fight for a reason.

In "new" X-com terms, I take rookies along on missions hoping to level them up into characters of their own, not necessarily to use them as bullet sponges - even if I do take more risks with them. On the flip side, I feel like it would be a really hard call to burn one of your high-level older heroes, just to get the relic on the field. I guess in the end it will come down to individual play style, but I feel like good design in character investment will mitigate some of the "gaming the system" issues.

Hey guys, a quick comment on the risk/reward discussion between Brad and Jake:

Game of Thrones keeps popping up since it's a paragon of the fantasy genre. An interesting example of risk/reward can be found by looking at the Targaryen bloodline. They are more powerful and have dragons, etc. - yet there is a risk of madness in their offspring.

When looking at the demon sword and possible consequences this is a really cool example. Maybe the demon sword could even have positive effects on the future of the bloodline, but could also result in a demon child that turns on the squad, or maybe even converts and goes over to the demon army (which would mean some really awesome user created story elements).

I know Brad mentioned The Banner Saga in one of the previous streams, but you should definitely talk with its creators (Stoic), because they already have a pretty sweet turn-based, square-based, melee combat system in form of a free multiplayer Factions (on Steam). It may be a bit too chess-like for Massive Chalice, but those folks seem to know a lot about this kind of combat systems.

When Rodimus is chosen as the heir to Optimus Prime by the matrix of leadership grows like 2 feet taller and throws Galvatron out of the room. then he destroys the matrix of leadership and destroys Unicorn the planet eater.

Excelent Videocast !!! Really Amazing !!!!
Hey , do you think you can get Brian Fargo on a pre-production chat like this , talking about Fallout Tactics and maybe Wastalnds tactical aspects ??? That would be soooooo RADDDDDDD !!!!!

There can be somewhat of a cover system for fantasy. Knights or Heroes with big shields can be like moving cover for the ranged heroes. Jake talked about how in X-com you looked at a battle field and picked your rout based on cover. In most historic battles the side that wins took the most advantage terrain on the field.

Things like choke points and high ground. Those things with the knowledge of your enemy can turn the tied of battle. Just like the Battle of Agincourt where the English picked a battlefield that would be imposable for heavy armored French knights to traverse.

So I think you can have a cover system in fantasy it just won't be where most of your fighting will take place from.

A full team wipe the way Brad describes it in Massive Chalice actually sounds pretty epic to me. It's not something that would be desirable to see that often, but imagine the story that would generate for a player if all the younglings are literally forced to take up their parent's weapons to defend the realm after such a catastrophe. The stuff of legend!

Do you guys know the Age of Wonders series? I'm thinking there might be some interesting inspirations for tactical aspects in there.

Also, X-Com is very well made, but I feel I must express my disagreement with M. Solomon on the desirability of one aspect: What I would most like to have in a tactical game is a realistic array of choices, that is to say I want the word to run along with the broad choices I make, and not force me into discreet choices between a few options in which I am more or less strong-armed.

This was one of the great element of the original X-Com that isn't faithfully transferred in the new one: I can't have more than one landing ship or base, and the game is forcing me to choose between battles artificially.

1. You should add that "wish to die on the battlefield"-idea. That would be a great mechanic! The old war hero wants to die on the battlefield, so he will be auto-assigned to the next mission. For that he gets a bonus perk. That perk makes him AI-controlled for that mission. He will just run towards the enemy, killing as much enemys as possible. For that he gets bonus hit-chance and damage. Additionally he gets 2-3 bonus turns after his HP reach 0. But even if he "survives" the battle, he will die the moment the last enemy has been slayen. That would be really cool.

2. Dont make the reactions of heroes seeing relatives die predictable, because, that would lead to situations like this: I leave the old father of one of my heroes in a bad situation, so that he will die the next turn, just to trigger the emotional reaction of the son, in order to get a berserker for the rest of the mission... that would break the emotional bond, you try to establish between the player and the heroes.

so listening to the video with jake solomon, i got tot he point that im wondering about the "good death" in battle. what if its based on the hero's personality, some prefer different life styles, different codes of honor, different ways to die

Jake seems like a cool dude, but XCom aliens being dormant until you find them just killed the game for me, a lot of game time wasted over watching nothing then bang, alien discovered, free enemy move... don't do this in Massive Chalice, please!

The part I find most exciting from the video is the discussion on the cost of using the demon weapons. This seems to have been a theme from the beginning but I would LOVE to see this make it past the "Unreasonable Optimism" stage.

That, and being able to have your ancestors come to assist you in your greatest hour of need. I see this skill as being used once a generation to keep it scarce and as a last resort.

Also, having the ability to take your old players out of retirement to die on the battlefield is a GREAT idea, when combined with the fact that their ancestral item will have different stats based on where they meet their end.

They are supporting a libertarian pipedream that is extremely volatile, and is predominantly used to buy drugs and peddo pornography and whose main currency handlers are under investigation by the Secret Service and the FBI.